破解加密：解密密码消息

There is a constant war raging around us. Do you know what it is? This war has caused billions of dollars worth of damage. This war has destroyed lives and this war is raging silently around us despite being one of the most active wars in history. Did those clues help you out? No? What about the war on cyber security and cyber attacks?

我们周围持续不断的战争。 你知道这是什么吗？ 这场战争造成了数十亿美元的损失。 这场战争毁了生命，尽管这场战争是历史上最活跃的战争之一，但这场战争在我们周围悄无声息。 这些线索对您有帮助吗？ 没有？ 关于网络安全和网络攻击的战争呢？

A few blogs ago, we first spoke of the importance of security when I discussed the Scytale, an early Roman cryptographic device. I invite you to reread that blog, but cyber security is one of the most important aspects of modern life. Each year hackers steal millions of credit card numbers, millions more innocent identities, and spend billions of dollars that they did not earn. Cyber crime has wreaked havoc on our economy and many of our lives.

几个博客之前，当我讨论Scytale (一种早期的罗马密码设备)时，我们首先谈到了安全的重要性。 我邀请您重新阅读该博客，但是网络安全是现代生活中最重要的方面之一。 每年，黑客窃取数百万个信用卡号，数百万个无辜的身份，并花费数十亿美元没有赚到的钱。 网络犯罪对我们的经济和我们的许多生活造成了严重破坏。

Data security has reached an all-time high. Businesses and other large corporations, such as social media companies, find themselves under governmental and societal pressure to keep our data secure. It seems multiple times a month another story breaks on the news about yet another company failing on this responsibility.

数据安全性达到了前所未有的高度。 企业和其他大型公司(例如社交媒体公司)发现自己处于政府和社会的压力之下，以确保我们的数据安全。 一个月似乎有好几次故事又在另一家公司未能履行职责的消息上传开。

The Romans’ brilliant use of codes allowed them to conquer most of the known civilized world.

罗马人对代码的出色运用使他们能够征服大多数已知的文明世界。

Digital security and cryptology have been important throughout history. Famous code breakers defeated the Nazi encryption with the Enigma machine, while thousands of years before the Romans were developing their own codes for wartime use. The Romans’ brilliant use of codes allowed them to conquer most of the known civilized world. However, about 1,200 years ago, a man by the name of Al-Kindi plummeted the world of encryption into pure chaos (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24).

在整个历史中，数字安全性和密码学一直很重要。 著名的密码破解者使用Enigma机器击败了纳粹加密，而在罗马人开发自己的战时密码之前数千年。 罗马人对代码的出色运用使他们能够征服大多数已知的文明世界。 但是，大约在1200年前，一个名叫Al-Kindi的人使加密世界陷入了混乱(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。

Al-Kindi was born in the year AD 801 in modern Iraq (Machkour, “You Probably Didn’t Know…”). This area was not the chaotic warzone it often is today. Far from it, this region was known as an important cultural center. Baghdad became a hub of philosophical, artistic, and scientific expression (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24). Al-Kindi made his home in Baghdad where he mastered medicine, astronomy, mathematics, linguistics, astrology, optics, and music. It was here that Al-Kindi wrote over 290 books, one which is of particular interest to us (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24). Al-Kindi garnered the nickname “Philosopher of the Arabs.”

艾尔·金迪(Al-Kindi)于公元801年出生于现代伊拉克(麦克库尔，“您可能不知道……”)。 这个地区不是今天经常出现的混乱战区。 远离该地区，该地区被称为重要的文化中心。 巴格达成为哲学，艺术和科学表达的中心(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。 阿尔·金迪(Al-Kindi)在巴格达定居，他精通医学，天文学，数学，语言学，占星术，光学和音乐。 Al-Kindi在这里写了290多本书，其中一本我们特别感兴趣(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。 阿尔·金迪(Al-Kindi)获得了“阿拉伯哲学家”的绰号。

Al-Kindi’s education and status eventually placed him as the director of the House of Wisdom, a library and cultural center that sought to collect books and knowledge from the Greeks, Indians, and Persians (Machkour, “You Probably Didn’t Know…”). However, there were a few issues prohibiting this endeavor. The first wasn’t difficult to overcome. The works were written in different languages. Being the linguist he was, Al-Kindi was able to translate them into the required Arabic that the people could read.

阿尔·金迪的教育和地位最终使他成为智慧之屋的馆长，这是一个图书馆和文化中心，致力于从希腊人，印第安人和波斯人那里收集书籍和知识(麦克库尔，“您可能不知道……” )。 但是，有一些问题禁止此工作。 第一个并不难克服。 这些作品是用不同的语言写的。 作为他的语言学家，Al-Kindi能够将它们翻译成人们可以阅读的所需阿拉伯语。

Some of the works Al-Kindi wished to place in his library were encrypted.

Al-Kindi希望放在他的图书馆中的一些作品被加密。

The second problem was a bit more difficult. Some of the works Al-Kindi wished to place in his library were encrypted. Just like the Romans, other cultures also used methods of encryption to hide important information. It was on this topic that one of Al-Kindi’s most famous works was written (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24).

第二个问题要困难一些。 Al-Kindi希望放在他的图书馆中的一些作品被加密。 就像罗马人一样，其他文化也使用加密方法来隐藏重要信息。 正是在这个主题上，阿尔金迪最著名的作品之一被写出(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。

In his piece titled, The Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages, Al-Kindi described the method by which he was able to decipher messages (Machkour, “You Probably Didn’t Know…”). The book appears to have been written in 850, but was lost until the 1980s when it was found at the Sulaimaniyyah Ottoman Archive in Istanbul. The work was later published by the Arab Academy of Damascus in 1987 (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24). In his book, Al-Kindi described how he was able to take messages once thought secure and read them in plain-text within minutes (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24). How did he do it?

Al-Kindi在题为“解密密码消息的手稿”的文章中描述了他能够解密消息的方法(Machkour，“您可能不知道……”)。 这本书似乎写于850年，但直到1980年代在伊斯坦布尔的Sulaimaniyyah奥斯曼档案馆被发现时才丢失。 该作品后来由大马士革阿拉伯学院于1987年出版(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。 艾尔·金迪(Al-Kindi)在他的书中描述了他如何能够在思想安全的情况下接收消息并在几分钟之内以纯文本格式阅读消息(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。 他是怎么做到的呢？

It was a fairly simple process, however, to understand it let’s review some of the popular methods of encryption at the time. There were primarily two methods, called transposition and substitution (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24).

但是，这是一个相当简单的过程，要了解它，让我们回顾一下当时流行的一些加密方法。 主要有两种方法，称为转置和替换(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)。

Transposition is simply scrambling the words or letters of a message into different locations. Children solve puzzles like these all the time. Look at this simple message:

换位只是将消息中的单词或字母扰乱到不同的位置。 孩子们一直都在解决这类难题。 看一下这个简单的消息：

CODED WORDS

编码字

If we were using transposition, then we could simply scramble them. This could now be our coded message:

如果我们使用换位，那么我们可以简单地对其进行加扰。 现在，这可能是我们的编码消息：

DOC DSRWO

DOC DSRWO

Substitution replaces the letters of a message with symbols, numbers, or other letters. If we shift every letter of the English alphabet by one (such that A is now represented by Z, and B represented by A) then we can encrypt this message. Now our coded message becomes:

替换用符号，数字或其他字母替换消息的字母。 如果我们将英文字母的每个字母都移动一个(这样，现在A用Z表示，B用A表示)，那么我们可以对该消息进行加密。 现在，我们的编码消息变为：

BNCDC VNQCR

BNCDC VNQCR

This message appears quite complex, but it is in fact relatively simple, especially if you know the message of encryption. Substitution encryption could be made more complex using multiple combinations made possible by the 26 letters of the English alphabet (Garfinkel and Grunspan 24).

该消息看起来相当复杂，但是实际上却相对简单，尤其是如果您知道加密消息。 可以使用英文字母的26个字母(Garfinkel和Grunspan 24)实现的多种组合来使替换加密更加复杂。

At the time both methods were considered extremely secure, however, Al-Kindi used statistics to break apart both in a matter of minutes. Al-Kindi’s method has come to be known as frequency analysis (Machkour, “You Probably Didn’t Know…”).

当时这两种方法都被认为是非常安全的，但是，Al-Kindi使用统计数据在几分钟之内就将两者分开。 Al-Kindi的方法已被称为频率分析(Machkour，“您可能不知道……”)。

He began by finding the highest frequency letter in the alphabet of the language he was deciphering. In English, that letter is “e,” used 13% of the time (“Code Breaking a Thousand…”). Therefore, the symbol that occurred most often in the message would, statistically, probably be the letter “e.” He would continue this process with all 26 letters of the language until all or most of the letters were discovered. Even if not all the symbols were translated correctly, the majority of the message could probably be deciphered from the letters that were translated correctly. Of course, Al-Kindi wasn’t using English, most of his deciphers involved Greek, Arabic, and Latin.

他首先从他所解密语言的字母中找到频率最高的字母。 在英语中，该字母为“ e”，使用了13％的时间(“破译代码……”)。 因此，根据统计信息，消息中最常出现的符号可能是字母“ e”。 他将使用该语言的所有26个字母继续该过程，直到发现所有或大部分字母为止。 即使并非所有符号都已正确翻译，大部分消息仍可能会从正确翻译的字母中破译出来。 当然，Al-Kindi并没有使用英语，他的大多数解密都包括希腊语，阿拉伯语和拉丁语。

Al-Kindi described his method in The Manuscript on Deciphering Cryptographic Messages:

Al-Kindi在“解密密码消息手稿”中描述了他的方法：

“One way to solve an encrypted message, if we know its language, is to find a different plain text of the same language long enough to fill one sheet or so, and then we count the occurrences of each letter. We call the most frequently occurring letter the ‘first,’ the next most occurring letter the ‘second,’ the following most occurring the ‘third,’ and so on, until we account for all the different letters in the plaintext sample…”

“ 如果我们知道一种加密消息的语言，一种解决方法是找到一种相同语言的不同纯文本，其长度足以填满一张纸左右，然后我们对每个字母的出现进行计数。 我们将出现频率最高的字母称为“第一”，将发生频率最高的字母称为“第二”，然后将发生频率最高的字母称为“第三”，依此类推，直到我们将明文样本中的所有不同字母都考虑在内……”

Then we look at the cipher text we want to solve and we also classify its symbols. We find the most occurring symbol and change it to the form of the ‘first’ letter of the plain-text sample, the next most common symbol is changed to the form of the ‘second’ letter, and so on, until we account for all symbols of the cryptogram we want to solve” (“Code Breaking a Thousand…”).

然后，查看要解决的密文，并对符号进行分类。 我们找到最常出现的符号并将其更改为纯文本样本的“第一个”字母的形式，将下一个最常见的符号更改为“第二个”字母的形式，依此类推，直到我们考虑到我们要解决的所有密码符号”(“破译密码……”)。

To the modern viewer, this method seems incredibly simple. However, at the time, it shattered all methods of encryption (Machkour, “You Probably Didn’t Know…”). Governments and cryptographers rushed to develop new methods of hiding data, given Al-Kindi had just laid waste to all known methods of encryption.

对于现代观众来说，这种方法似乎非常简单。 但是，当时它粉碎了所有加密方法(Machkour，“您可能不知道……”)。 鉴于Al-Kindi刚刚浪费了所有已知的加密方法，各国政府和密码学家急于开发隐藏数据的新方法。

Al-Kindi had started the war.

阿尔·金迪开始了战争。

Al-Kindi had started the war. The war between code-breakers and coders. Al-Kindi did not invent a device, but rather a process. In the world of cyber security and data encryption, processes can be deadly as illustrated in this example.

阿尔·金迪开始了战争。 密码破解者和编码人员之间的战争。 Al-Kindi并不是发明一种设备，而是发明一种过程。 在网络安全和数据加密的世界中，如本示例所示，流程可能是致命的。

Today, our methods of encryption are many, many more times secure. However, individuals still work to undo these methods and just like the ancient societies, modern societies must remain ahead, always developing new ways to protect our messages and data.

如今，我们的加密方法已经安全了很多倍。 但是，人们仍在努力取消这些方法，就像古代社会一样，现代社会必须保持领先地位，始终在开发保护我们的信息和数据的新方法。

The process of decryption developed by Al-Kindi revealed a need for greater, more secure, methods of encryption. Al-Kindi’s monumental work on data security has influenced not only his time, but ours as well. He started the war that cyber security professionals are still fighting today. The importance of Al-Kindi’s work and its implications cannot be understated.

Al-Kindi开发的解密过程表明，需要更大，更安全的加密方法。 Al-Kindi在数据安全方面的杰出工作不仅影响了他的时间，也影响了我们的时间。 他发动了这场战争，今天网络安全专业人员仍在战斗。 Al-Kindi的工作及其重要性的重要性不可低估。

This week’s fifth milestone in the history of computing is an important process that broke data security. Next week, we will visit an important device that sought to complicate and toughen data security.

本周在计算历史上的第五个里程碑是破坏数据安全性的重要过程。 下周，我们将参观一种重要的设备，该设备旨在使数据安全性复杂化并得到加强。

有关网络安全的更多信息： (More on CyberSecurity:)

探索有关计算机历史的更多信息： (Explore More on the History of Computers:)

参考文献 (Works Cited)

“Code Breaking a Thousand Years Ago: 1001 Inventions.” 1001Inventions, www.1001inventions.com/code-breaking.

“打破千年的代码：1001年发明。” 1001Inventions ， www.1001inventions.com / code-breaking 。

Garfinkel, Simson, and Rachel H. Grunspan. The Computer Book: from the Abacus to Artificial Intelligence, 250 Milestones in the History of Computer Science. Sterling, 2018.

Garfinkel，Simson和Rachel H. Grunspan。 计算机书籍：从算盘到人工智能，计算机科学史上的250个里程碑 。 斯特林，2018年。

Machkour, Siham. “You Probably Didn’t Know Al-Kindi’s Work On Deciphering Cryptographic Messages.” Mvslim, 22 Jan. 2018, mvslim.com/you-probably-didnt-know-al-kindis-work-on-deciphering-cryptographic-messages/.

锡罕(Siham)Machkour。 “您可能不知道Al-Kindi在解密密码消息方面的工作。” Mvslim ，2018年1月22日， mvslim.com / you-didnt-know-al-kindis-work-on-encryption-cryptographic-messages /。

翻译自: https://medium.com/tech-is-a-tool/code-breakers-the-war-of-cryptography-1193586528c5